In 1997, Mohammed T. Mehdi, the head of the Arab-American Committee and the
National Council on Islamic Affairs, lobbied to have a crescent and star
go up at the World Trade Center
during the holiday season. His wish was granted, despite the fact that
Mehdi had been an adviser to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.

In the name of diversity and political correctness, an adviser to the religious leader behind the World Trade Center bombing, was allowed to plant an Islamic symbol of conquest in the very place that had been bombed. Long before the Ground Zero Mosque was even a twinkle in the eye of a violent ex-waiter and a slumlord Imam, the World Trade Center allowed Mohammed T. Mehdi to bully it into flying the symbol of Islam.

By 1997, Mohammed T. Mehdi had become an unambiguously ugly public
figure. He had been fired by Mayor Dinkins in 1992 for anti-Semitic
remarks. The year before he had proclaimed that, "Millions of Arabs believe Saddam stands tall having defied Western colonialism". In 1995, the US Attorney's Office in New York had listed Mehdi as one of the unindicted co-conspirators
in the trial of Sheik Rahman. Mehdi had already published a book titled
"Kennedy and Sirhan: Why?", which argued that Robert Kennedy's assassin
had been acting in self-defense.

Considering Mehdi's role in actively working on behalf of the Sheik behind the wave of terrorism that included the original
attack on the World Trade Center, turning down his request should have been a no-brainer. And yet when all was said and done, in
the winter of 1997 there was an Islamic star and crescent at the World
Trade Center. And another one at the park in front of the White House.

The previous year had marked the first annual Ramadan dinner at the State Department,
integrating the Islamic celebration into the Clinton Administration's
schedule of events. Bill Clinton had not come down to the World
Trade Center after the bombing, but in his list of priorities, he did find a way to make time for Ramadan. A
month after 9/11, Bush went Clinton one better, when he became the first US President to host a Ramadan dinner at the White House.
Many of the Muslim ambassadors at the event were there representing
countries that had helped finance Al Qaeda. Little more than a month
after the attacks, the President of the
United States sat down to break bread with the money men behind the attacks.

But the Star and Crescent flying at the World Trade Center did not
prevent it from being targeted in a second greater attack four years
later. Nor did the Ramadan dinners keep the plane headed for the White House at bay. It took the self-sacrifice of its American passengers to do that. Instead every gesture of appeasement only seemed to
make it worse. Before the star and crescent flew at the World Trade
Center, the site suffered only a few dead. After it, thousands dead. The
more Ramadan dinners Bush hosted, the more Americans died, because the Star and Crescent and the Ramadan dinners both signified a
deliberate blindness to the threat of Islamic terrorism.

No one who understood what had happened at the World Trade Center in
1993, would have permitted a banner associated with its attackers to be
flown there. But while the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey, let Mehdi have his way with the World Trade Center, other Muslims were working to carry out Sheik Abdel-Rahman's agenda for a war on
America and the free world; "Cut the transportation of their countries," the blind Sheik had commanded,
"tear it apart, destroy their economy, burn their companies, eliminate
their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on
the sea, air, or land."

While
the Star and Crescent was blowing in the cold December wind coming off
the Hudson River, an even colder wind was blowing out of Hamburg,
Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. A year earlier Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had
come up with the idea and presented it to Osama bin Laden. A year later
the operation began to move forward.

While Secretary of State Albright was holding her Ramadan dinners, other
Ramadan dinners were being held out of sight at which more substantive
events were being discussed. While the US was busy bombing Yugoslavian
civilians in order to create a separatist Muslim state for KLA
terrorists, Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were recruiting the first of
the 9/11 hijackers. While the
United States tried to appease Muslims, Muslims plotted to murder Americans.

In 1997, the New York Daily News wrote an upbeat story about Mehdi's Star and Crescent, which envisioned Islam blending in merrily into the holiday season.

New York may seem a little brighter this holiday season as
the glowing Muslim crescent and star symbol nudges its way onto a
seasonal landscape of Christmas trees, menorahs and Kwanzaa candles.

Four years later, cheery folks yelling "Allahu Akbar" had filled downtown Manhattan with ashen snow and brightened it with the flames of the burning towers of the World Trade Center.

The 9/11 hijackers
left behind notes, which said among other things, "Shout, 'Allahu
Akbar,' because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers".
If there were any Santas on those planes, they were certainly drowned
out by the cries of "Allah Akbar". And if that didn't drown them out,
having their throats being slit by the cheery folks with box cutters
surely did.

On the Christmas of 2001, New York City was a city with an open wound.
Muslims had finally made their impact on the holiday season in a truly
unforgettable way. At Ground Zero, workers were still struggling to
search through the remains, looking for bodies or parts of them. "It
would be like a gift for somebody," a police officer said, who was
spending his holiday searching through the debris. A gift for the
non-believers on that holiday season from Islam.

While Muslims were stuffing their faces in November of 2001, Americans
were mourning their dead. While Abdul, Mohammed and Raisa were
picking through their lamb stew, Americans were picking up the pieces of their loved ones.
And yet it was Americans who were repeatedly told to be sensitive to
Muslim concerns.

From Pakistan, Musharraf urged the US to suspend
bombing his Taliban allies during Ramadan... in the name of sensitivity.
New York City schools were making arrangements
for Muslim prayers out of "heightened sensitivity to Muslim concerns
after the Sept. 11 attack". Instead of Americans being on
the receiving end of "heightened sensitivity", the ideology that had conspired to murder them was.

On the 9th anniversary of 9/11, Islam had another gift for us.
Having bought up a building damaged in their own attack, they plotted to
set up a grand mosque near Ground Zero. Another gift to New Yorkers
from the religion that kept on giving. Another Crescent and Star.

The same people who did not learn the lesson in 1997, and allowed the
Crescent and Star to fly at the World Trade Center, were eager to let
the Ground Zero Mosque go forward in the name of tolerance. But despite the Crescent and Star, appeasement proved to be no defense. 3,000 people died on 9/11
because American leaders preferred to appease, rather than confront. And we are
still busy appeasing, like never before.

Without political correctness, duplicitous left leaning members of congress, the ACLU, the Media and groups like CAIR, Islam would be relegated to an afterthought in the United States.

Of course the exception would be when Muslim Jihadists' like those who flew airplanes into tall buildings on 9-11-01 declared war upon us necessitating that we retaliate by smoking them on their own turf

A more poignant yet depressing Christmas time discourse I have ever read. To say it shows how misguided Americans have become would be a weak anthropic statement at best. I used to think Americans were simply becoming ignorant and could be helped with better education. Now words like obtuse, brutish and torpid are all I can utter.Ignorance can be helped with night school but there is not a damn thing you can do for stupid.

Daniel, I cannot believe how well you "get it" and manage to encapsulate so many clearly related and troubling trends that the mainstream media either doesn't see or chooses to ignore.The cultural exhaustion of the West is nothing new, plenty of other great civilizations have experienced it and it has consumed them. The US wouldn't be putting up a Nazi German flag for Christmas and having Nazis over at the White House for dinner. But with Muslims, that has been turned on its head thanks to decades of cultural relativism, cultural Marxism and white/Western guilt. It is extremely refreshing that you pointed out the sheer absurdity of the West's counter-productive foray into Serbia/Yugoslavia where they attempted to score brownie points with Islamic terrorists by supporting the murderous KLA and Bosnian Muslims (helped by their sugar daddy Bin Laden who was literally there during the 90's).I am still astounded at how stupid Western elites don't see that helping these pedophiles only affirms their hatred of and belief that the West is weak, gullible and stupid.It's like Battered Spouse Syndrome on a international scale. The more aggressive and violent the terror is, the more we seem to strive to please them. After all, if they beat us it's our own fault for not being good enough to them. It is extremely troubling and seemingly hopeless at this point. If Sept. 11 and the aftermath wasn't enough to open people's eyes to the reality of the threat that Islam poses to modern civilization, the only thing that will be enough will be the demographic time bomb, at which point it may be too late.

As the renewed gun control debate rages, this well-armed American believes that much of it plays neatly into the hands of Islamists, in the US and dramatically in the UK. A nation unarmed is easy pickings for Sharia-driven extremists, who will one day attempt to usurp the legal systems of both lands. Pandering leftists will agree, and will raise hands in praise to Allah that the Christian and secular 'crazies' were disarmed beforehand, to avoid conflict and intolerance of their new masters. 9-11 may one day seem a fairly unremarkable day of destruction.

i wonder how the families of the 9/11 tragedy feel when they see the islamic flag flying over the World Trade Center site. i cannot begin to imagine that. we have delusional leadership, or else they are doing this as part of their delusional agenda to undermine the american system.

Excellent, as usual. Ever notice that the same MSM types who drip dismissive, arrogant disdain - bordering on outright hatred - when interviewing supporters of gun rights, tread ever so lightly when interviewing Muslim apologists for Islamist atrocities? Maybe they understand that supporters of the Second Amendment also support the First. Do you suppose they will one day support 'scimitar control'??

Americans will NEVER forget that thousands of INHUMAN Palestinian Authority Muslims celebrated with great joy and delight the terrible suffering and cruel mass slaughter of our 3,000 innocents; dancing in the streets, passing out sweets and firing into the air. Muslims that Americans are immorally forced to support with their taxes. And reward with a Muslim terror state in Israel bent on Jewish genocide.

We will never forget that Muslims also celebrated in the streets in America and other countries.

In Berlin, Germany, Turkish Muslims celebrated the 9/11 murder of innocents by sending up hundreds of bottle rockets into the air.

We will also never forget that thousands of Palestinian Authority Muslims celebrate in the streets whenever a Muslim terrorist blows up amongst our cherished Israeli brothers and sisters.

We will never forget the 7/7 cruel slaughter of our cherished British brothers and sisters.

I remember Dr. M.T. Mehdi (an Iraqi born immigrant) very well from the 1960's and 70's, He was a rabble rouser back then, a fellow who always showed up at every anti Israel demonstration preaching that "Palestine" should be "multi-religious, pluralistic, secular and democratic" - all with a straight face.

Daniel,Unfortunately some have learned the lesson of fear. They approve of the mosque building because they've learned to fear Muslims and what might happen to them personally. I imagine the same thinking went through some of the heads of state when they started hosting Ramadan dinners. They want the crocodile to eat them last.

How did you manage to become an Ex-Dissident?Because you are able to see both sides of the coin and decipher the writing?I am a Forever Dissident and at times thought it was all behind me but alas some new insult always appears.I like your description of their mindset and reason. The last time I left Saudi Arabia I had an old Bedouin taxi driver take me to Bahrain. He put it this way, "The camel (Islamic extremism) does not have her nose in the tent, she has come inside and she will never leave."Since his family and friends are the camel he has more reason to be accepting but our government has a different reason.